Speculative Fiction—an all-encompassing genre created to describe stories of science fiction, fantasy, alternate history, and other stories that have an element of “What if...” in them. A story in speculative fiction is one that adds an element of the unreal, or asks, what would become of our society if history took a different direction at some important event? Fiction with a little something extra thrown in.—William D. Richards

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Thursday, May 24, 2018

Chaos Conspiracy (Sacrificial Magic, Book 1) by Holly Evans

Release date: May 17, 2018

Subgenre: Urban Fantasy

About Chaos Conspiracy:

Wren Kincaid, blood witch.

It’s
a shame I can’t put that on my résumé. Mercenaries with magic or
supernal blood have a much easier time landing jobs. Unfortunately, if
anyone finds out about my blood magic, I’ll be executed in twelve hours
or less. Blood witches were eradicated a century before I was born,
deemed too dangerous, or so everyone thought.

My life wasn’t too
bad. I had to wrangle more drunk pixies than I’d have liked, and it was
far from luxurious. I struggled to pay my rent, but I wasn’t
complaining. Not too loudly, anyway.

Cue the Council and Dante
Caspari. The Council are the people who will execute me if they find out
what I am. Dante Caspari is the sexy-as-sin guy they hired me to work
with so I can find out what happened to the missing supernals in
Bucharest.

It sounds great working with a sexy guy, right? The
problem is, his father’s a demon prince and his mother’s one of the most
powerful witches in the Americas. If anyone is going to trip me up and
hand me over to the Council, it’s him. So, I have to find the missing
supernals, save the day, and try not to get killed doing it. Funny,
those drunk pixies I was complaining about don’t seem so bad now.

Set in the same world as the popular Forged in Blood series

Excerpt:

Things were not going to plan. Redcaps were dumb. I was supposed to
open his arteries, he’d bleed out, and we were done. Nice and easy.
Instead, we circled around each other again, and I wasn’t finding a
hint of weakness in his movements. Given my lack of size, I
depended on my speed and wiles. I wouldn’t do well in a long,
sustained fight. A redcap would normally be slower, almost
lumbering, but he was as nimble as a sidhe or a feline shifter.
Something was very wrong there. Had I been set up? He rushed me
again, and I slashed at his throat, but he pulled away and my blade
slipped through thin air. He wasn’t giving me any room to dance
away, not that time. He had his arms out and a manic grin on his
face. I tried to duck under his arms, but he grabbed onto the back
of my jacket.

I tried to stab him in the groin, but his arms were longer than
mine. He leaned in, and his teeth grazed my throat. I tried to
slash at his wrist to free myself of his grip. He dropped me, only
to dive forwards and pin me against my own alchemical barrier. I
should have known that was a stupid idea!

He licked my cheek, and I fought to free my arms so I could cut off
that awful grey tongue. His rancid breath filled my nose and
threatened to make me vomit.

“Ever heard of breath mints?” I asked.

He held my arms firm as he inched in closer, his teeth aiming for
my neck. A quick glance around showed that we were still alone.
Non-magical people wouldn’t be able to see inside of the alchemical
circle, but supernals would be able to. I couldn’t afford the trap
that made us entirely invisible, and really it would be good for
business if supernals saw me kicking ass. I mentally reached inside
the redcap and wrapped my consciousness around his blood. It felt
so damn good to use my magic. If the Council knew I had it at all,
they’d kill me. Blood magicians were outlawed for being too
dangerous a century before I was born. As I held his blood in my
mind’s eye and made it boil within him, I wondered if, perhaps,
they had a point.

The redcap screamed and flailed as he clawed at himself, tearing
great chunks of flesh out of his arms and stomach. Then he went
poof. The black gunk that formed when a fae died rained down and
coated me. It smelled like rotting meat and fresh blood. It was
going to take forever to get that smell out of my hair. Thankfully,
the gunk would dissolve soon enough, but that damn smell was going
to linger on my skin and hair.

I sighed and ran my fingers through my hair, trying to get some of
the gunk out. At least I’d earnt enough to pay rent. Ok, so it was
three days late, but better late than never, right? The bone-deep
tiredness that came with using my blood magic started to slip in
just as the alchemical trap dissolved around me. A hot guy chose
that moment to walk around the corner and see me coated in black
gunk and looking frazzled from chasing that damn redcap for three
days. I gave him a big friendly smile and a little wave before I
realised I still had my blood-coated dagger in my hand. His eyes
went big and he swallowed hard before he turned on his heel and
walked very quickly the other direction. I had to give him points
for not running, I supposed.

About Holly Evans:

Holly Evans is an urban fantasy author with an unhealthy
fascination with blades, a deep love of hellhounds, and would love one
day to wake up as a fae. When she isn't wrangling rogue characters and
trying to tame her muse, she's researching shiny new ninja moves. During
her spare time she fights crime and rights wrongs on the streets of
County Kerry.

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